Comment on is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal

underscores@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

• faythofdragons@slrpnk.net ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I always felt like that study from the 90s is missing part of the picture. Like, it’s less ‘closeted gay people’ that are the problem, and it’s more the people who are closeted because it was beaten into them at a young age that being gay means they deserve the worst of the worst.

  I think you’re spot on with fear being the root cause, and we really have done a good job at making people afraid of their own sexuality.

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• Sidhean@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I was hoping someone else articulated this better than me. When I read OP’s screenshot, I heard “Your dick got hard when we showed you sex. What are you, gay? You’re gay, aren’t you?” Which doesn’t really follow. Thats just bullying, I think. The scientists were bullying the homophobes lmao.

  And, like, they’re probably sometimes correct. I conject homophobia is a mask worn by homos to blend in around homophobes, and then the paper you linked hits me with

  These findings confirm the importance of considering the variability in impulsive processes to understand why some (but not all) men high in homophobia have homosexual interest.

  and wow, this really does confirm my bias! Thank you for sharing

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• the_mighty_kracken@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  If you disagree with the science, perhaps you should do your own study?

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  • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Nah, nope, nuh-uh, that’s not how science works. A person’s concerns about the methodology or conclusions of a particular study are not invalid just because they haven’t run their own experiments.

    It’s pretty easy for even a layperson to question this particular study, for a few reasons:

    • The sample sizes are very small
    • Some men can get erections/aroused if the wind blows the wrong way, or even for no reason at all - putting porn in front of someone and expecting them not to become aroused is a dubious assumption at best
    • Using some external test to determine someone’s sexuality, instead of using the person’s self-identification, goes against the last 30 years of progress we’ve made in gender and sexuality studies
    • The conclusion of the study may indicate some level of homophobic or anti-homosexual bias

    Don’t gatekeep good critical thinking. Good critical thinking is the only thing you ever need to question any scientific study.

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    • blarghly@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I think that you make some good points. But I take issue with your third point. People lie about things to researchers (or simply don’t know have some sort of self-knowledge) all the time. This is the whole concept of “revealed preference” in economics. Someone can say that they care about sweatshop labor, but do they actually make any effort to avoid buying products produced in sweatshops?

      Not questioning the experiment subjects’ stated sexual identity just neuters the whole point of the study: is homophobia driven by repressed homosexual desire. If it is repressed, we should expect subjects to say they are straight even if they aren’t. Could the methodology be flawed? Sure! But there is nothing wrong with trying to actually measure the homosexual attraction of someone who says they are not so attracted.

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      • Objection@lemmy.ml ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Agree with your overall point, but a “revealed preference” isn’t necessarily a lie or lake of self-knowledge. A recovering alcoholic might have a revealed preference for alcohol but that doesn’t mean they’re lying when they say they don’t want it or that they’re unaware of the temptation they have for it (insane as this may sound, people have actually made this argument before). The whole economic concept rests on massive philosophical and psychological cans of worms about what defines a person’s identity and wants, which economists are happy to oversimplify and ignore. The average person can’t really be expected to track entire supply chains for every purchase they ever make, which is why we have regulations. Instead of having every individual track every part of the production of every purchase, we (as a society) assign someone the job of investigating the production process to see if there’s anything that we would find objectionable.

        If a lot of people say that they have a problem with sweatshops, but then purchase goods made in sweatshops, you could argue that their behavior “reveals” their true preference, but it would be equally valid to say that what what they actually consciously express is their true preference and their failure to live up to it is driven by ignorance, succumbing to temptation, or regulatory failure.

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      • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        That’s fair, but I get the feeling that the researchers came up with their conclusion before performing their study, and then interpreted their findings to fit that pre-supposed conclusion. The only thing this study can fairly claim is that some homophobic men may harbor homosexual desires. They’ve failed to demonstrate any causal linkage between those two attributes, but they’re heavily suggesting one exists. Maybe their abstract grossly oversimplifies things, but it seems to extrapolate their findings far beyond any reasonable conclusion in my opinion, and that makes me question their methods and motives more than I normally would. The publication date also raises flags, as the common pervasive sentiment about homosexuality was very different in 1996 than it is today. All of those things combined indicate to me that this study should be carefully considered with plenty of grains of salt at hand.

        But to get back on topic a little bit - my original intent was to refute the notion that if someone has a problem with the methodology of a scientific study, then they must perform their own study and present evidence to support a contrary claim. The examples I listed are things it would be reasonable to expect a layman with solid critical thinking skills to point out as potential flaws in this particular study, potential areas to look further into, to confirm whether or not the study is scientifically sound.

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    • rikudou@lemmings.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I can think of multiple reasons a straight man could get aroused by seeing a dick.

      First, erections don’t occur only because of arousal, they can happen from adrenaline as well. I guess if you’re a homophobe and are about to watch gay porn as part of research, you might get a bit of adrenaline.

      Another reason I can think of is that most straight men see a dick when they watch porn, meaning their brain may make the association of “dick on screen = some hot nude lady is gonna show up”.

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    • zea_64@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Point 2 is covered by having a control group and point 3 seems to be missing the point: well yeah, don’t take the conclusion too far, but that doesn’t mean measuring arousal is bad science.

      Bigger issues are low sample size (as you mentioned) and the fact that it’s a correlational study that hasn’t done any work to causally link them.

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    • the_mighty_kracken@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Someone should repeat the study. That’s all I’m saying. If the criticism is that the study was too small or done too long ago, or whatever. The anti-science crowd are the ones who reason away the results of science with no basis of fact. If you disagree with the facts, it is your responsibility to disprove them.

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      • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        No, what you said was “if you disagree with the science, perhaps you should do your own study”.

        “Disagree with the science” is a disingenuous oversimplification bordering on nonsensical. People are calling into question the methods of the study, and the conclusions reached by the scientists interpreting the data. All of which can be accomplished with good critical thinking, and all of which is part of the scientific process. We’re not “disagreeing with the science”. We don’t need to repeat this experiment or run our own to be able to point out that it looks like there are flaws in this study - we just need to have good critical thinking skills.

        If you disagree with the facts, it is your responsibility to disprove them.

        What facts? Are you implying that the content of a scientific study becomes “fact” simply because a scientist publishes it? Because that’s wrong, and any published scientist will tell you as much.

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  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Critique and analysis of a study or experiment is the default. It isn’t a religion; science thrives on repeat analysis.

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    • the_mighty_kracken@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Which is why someone should repeat the study to confirm or contradict it.

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      • howrar@lemmy.ca ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        This whole discussion you see above is part of the process of repeating a study. You can’t just do exactly what the previous study did and expect all the flaws to magically disappear. You need to first uncover the flaws, and more eyes and collaboration means a higher likelihood that the flaws get found. Then you redesign the experiment to fix those flaws, and then you can run it again.

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  • twice_hatch@midwest.social ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Yeah gimme a bunch of money lol

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    • the_mighty_kracken@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Lemme just reach into my giant money bag … Hey, who took my giant money bag!?

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      • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        You left it in the parlor

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  • Tiger666@lemmy.ca ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Do you know what peer review means?

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    • the_mighty_kracken@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Are you a scientist?

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